He had only missed one game this season. The one tonight in Anoeta will be the second that Sporting disputes without Fran Villalba, with the precedent of having been defeated in Las Palmas the last time the same thing happened. The Valencian and Marc Valiente have not recovered in time from their discomfort and will be absent against Sanse, joining the already known suspended Juan Berrocal. The meeting is marked by the value of three points that can ward off the ghost of relegation or put the people of Gijon squarely in trouble. The San Sebastian subsidiary, who has just linked two victories, against Malaga and Oviedo, is nine points behind the rojiblancos and at the beginning of the day they marked the area of the penalty posts. Martí needs to release his points locker.
Real Sociedad B already knows what it’s like to beat Sporting this season. He did it in El Molinón (0-1) becoming one of the rivals who gave an image of greater superiority in the Gijon municipal. A Sporting is warned that it is looking for its first victory with Martí after the frustrated debut of the Balearic against Zaragoza. The defeat of last day extended a dynamic summarized in only three wins and five draws in the last nineteen league games. The meeting returns the rojiblanco coach to San Sebastián, where he lived one of his stages as a footballer. It was in 2008, the year in which Preciado’s Sporting snatched promotion to First Division from the San Sebastian team in an even season finale.
The threat of the relegation zone has marked a week in which the San Sebastian subsidiary has already been valued from the locker room as a direct rival, without wanting to give up looking at a play-off that mathematics increasingly consider impossible.
Sporting will jump to Anoeta tonight wearing black armbands in memory of José Fernández, Sporting’s largest shareholder, who died on February 27. They already did it, throughout the whole weekend, the teams of the red and white lower categories. A minute of silence was also observed in the games played in Mareo.
